Circulation 75,648 • Volume 20, No. 2 • Summer 2005   Issue PDF

Web Survey on the Anesthesia Machine Pre-Use Check

Sem Lampotang, PhD

Many significant developments have occurred since the Food and Drug Administration released the latest version of the Anesthesia Apparatus Checkout Recommendations in 1993. Anesthesia workstations that include electronics and software as an integral part of their design and feature different variations of semi-automated pre-use checks have begun to replace purely pneumatic anesthesia machines. Not all anesthesia ventilators use a bellows design anymore; there are now also piston ventilators. There are substantive differences in design, even within a given manufacturer’s product line. Monitoring, whether integrated into an anesthesia workstation or as stand-alone units, is more prevalent. The new ASTM standard F-1850 for anesthesia workstations was released in 1998.

An anonymous survey is currently being conducted via the web to assess compliance with the 1993 Food and Drug Administration recommendation to perform a pre-use check of the anesthesia machine before every case. The survey questions are designed to obtain insight about the reasons for non-compliance and to seek patterns for non-compliance that could potentially be used to re-design the pre-use check to enhance compliance and effectiveness. This survey is for all who perform the anesthesia machine pre-use check, including anesthesia providers and anesthesia technicians.

We encourage active and candid participation of the APSF membership in the survey so that your input, concerns, and educational and training needs are adequately and accurately represented in the current survey.

The survey can be accessed and completed anonymously at the University of Florida’s Virtual Anesthesia Machine website: http://www.vam.anest.ufl.edu/logincheck.html. To access the survey, one needs to register as a Virtual Anesthesia Machine user, which is free. After completion of the anonymous survey, you will be provided access to a preview of a free web simulation of the 1993 FDA Anesthesia Apparatus Checkout Recommendations, whose development is funded by the Anesthesia Patient Safety Foundation.

Sem Lampotang, PhD
Member, APSF Committee on Education and Training
Project Director, Virtual Anesthesia Machine
Professor of Anesthesiology